Keeping quiet was difficult but, telling anyone else
would have made things worse. I tried not to let it take over the summer. It
shadowed my steps for several weeks after that afternoon. I studied the book
that led me to that moment, and found no answers. I attempted to discover a
reason, but this eluded for me no matter how many times I looked at its
pages. I studied its symbols, some strange, others familiar. I deciphered
some of it, enough to tell me where to stand that day. I saw something, but
much of its other messages were beyond my abilities to decipher. I didnít
understand what it cryptic letters meant. This uncertainty caused me a great
deal of anxiety. I knew something was hovering over me in the distance, but
I couldnít understand what exactly. Iíd need to be much more careful in my
surroundings, and I wasnít taking unneeded risks for several weeks
afterward. This made me fearful, and I was constantly looking around my
shoulder, checking for some unseen threat. The summer dragged on keeping its
grip on the world. Its heat felt almost inescapable while those symbols
burned through the pages each time I opened it up. I felt like I was going
around in circles, trying and failing to find the answers. After awhile, I
decided that I may have been reading too much into it. Some of the messages
inside its pages were false alarms. I tried not to let myself think about it
too much. Part of me wished it was all a stupid kidsí daydream but I knew
that wasnít true, either. I felt myself at the center of undercurrents I
couldnít get away from. Everything felt strange and confusing, there were
constant reminders everywhere I looked. I wished there was someone or
something that would help me along. I searched for a signal but couldnít
find anything to guide me. I was caught between what I knew was real and
things I wasnít sure of.

Even with all that had transpired, there were a
few strangely reassuring moments that helped me to keep moving forward. I
couldnít really place their significance in isolation but they added up. As
the summer progressed, I kept waiting and searching and made little
progress. As the days reached August, the sun began to set earlier. The air
at the beach seemed thicker as the accumulation of heat and water soaked
through the atmosphere, making everything feel denser. I continued to go the
beach during the day, but I was warier of where I went. It was crowded down
there, and would have been easy to get lost. For several weeks after the
storm, Iíd occasionally feel something rumbling underneath my feet whenever
I began to wander away, as if I was being warned. It was a little
frightening and I tried to keep within the boundaries of places I knew. I
spent a lot of time in the safe company of my brother, and we competed
against each other diving off the boards under the sun. As the summer days
slipped into each other, I felt the stagnation slowly ease. The water was
tranquil on the surface with its waves moving almost imperceptibly, growing
stronger against the shoreline as the tides changed during the later
afternoons. Under the surface, I noticed that the currents were getting a
little choppy, grabbing at my ankles unexpectedly. This unpredictability
made some of my more elaborate diving moves feel a bit too dangerous, so I
took fewer chances when I went jumping off. It wasnít as exciting, but I
still had something to keep my mind off things for awhile. The sun slowly
lost its heat with the fading days becoming less oppressive. As the summer
neared its end, the beachside became increasingly crowded as people began to
sense the end and rushed to the shore. This wasnít an entirely bad thing,
since the increasingly loud crowds helped drown out the noise that was still
filtering inside of me. Most of those days were still relatively calm.
Occasionally, a rain shower would come. They reminded me of how vulnerable I
felt that day at the arcade when that storm seemed to explode from nowhere.

When it rained, I returned to the arcade but something had changed that I
couldnít quite define. I couldnít focus on a single game and instead
wandered between the different cabinets. The shadows were too long and I
never really got into anything with the same intensity. The memory was
always present, distracting me. I constantly looked over my shoulder more
than once but never really saw anything. There was nothing else visible that
I could see. It might have just been a momentary panic, a short daydream. I
wasnít sure. I didnít let it stop me from having a little fun. I counted my
quarters every morning and budgeted carefully so I could play as long as
possible. There was nothing worse than finding yourself without money and
hours left to do nothing. After awhile, I knew which games that I could play
the longest and spent most of my time with them. Many of the older games had
slower speeds and werenít as complicated making them easier to play, I spent
a lot of timing playing the older ones like Tempest, which still looked
sharp to me, but was a little bit too old to attract a crowd. I returned to
old favorites like Defender, which I still hadnít completely mastered, but
was good enough at to play for quite some time. I didnít play too much
Star
Castle,
and one or two tentative plays remained frustrating. I mostly avoided it for
the remaining days of summer vacation. I wasnít very good at most of the
newer games which were unfamiliar and more complicated. I still enjoyed
playing Gyruss when I could, but some of the newer additions intimidated me
and I decided to stay away from them to keep my money longer. They were
frustrating to me, and my lack of concentration didnít help. I had a lot on
my mind otherwise and I felt the games pull on me loosening for those few
months. The summer days were gradually shortening and I felt that the summer
hadnít really lived up to what I had expected it to be. There had been some
odd occurrences to be sure, and I spent a lot of time wondering what exactly
was happening. I wondered if I had dreamed all this up. There was no real
evidence that certain things happened, aside from a few small indecipherable
scribbles in someoneís coloring book. The days at the beach and arcade had
also become a little bit predictable after awhile and they began to blend
together. It almost felt like a job or school and it was beginning to wear
me down. I needed a change of pace and I was looking for an opportunity to
break the pattern Iíd fallen into.

My brother had gone off somewhere for the day and I was left to fend for
myself on the beach one morning. I didnít feel like swimming or diving alone
and I was getting a bit tired of the arcade at the point. Iíd played all the
same games and desperately wanted to do something different. I decided to
see what else was out there. I left my usual spots and felt a slight
tingling under my feet but I ignored it. I walked towards the other side of
the beach and looked around. This made me nervous at first, but something
told me that the danger had passed, and I could safely resume my exploration
to outside areas. The water seemed a little choppier out there and I knew it
would be a bad idea to jump in. I wasnít really in the mood. I walked
further towards the edge of the breaking currents and found something lying
on the sand, I didnít know what it was at first but as I moved closer I saw
that it was an old radio. I turned it over and it looked like it had been
through a many years of wear and tear. Its back was faded and showed signs
of rusting, and its antenna was missing the top half. I tried to turn it on
but the dials were rusted in place. I decided to take it with me and carried
it in my hand for the journey ahead. It was very strange, like someone had
purposely left it there for me to find. I walked further along the seaside
until I finally reached a somewhat hidden path. I had gone there before on a
night a year or so earlier. No one knew about that place and I wanted to go
back and see if anything had changed. Pressing my feet against the dirt, I
didnít feel any rumbles underneath. I thought someone was clearing my path.

I
had a strange dream a few nights where I danced with her once again, but my
memory of it seemed kind of foggy. I felt a little adrift, but that weird
premonition helped keep me motivated. I stepped over a cluster of rocks and
climbed up the path a little until I reached down towards the clearing. I
took my time, wanting to soak in the warm ocean air a lit bit longer,
knowing that things were going to change once the fall arrived. I looked
around and the saw a familiar grouping of trees overhead. I looked upwards
and saw the afternoon shadows were growing longer, I didnít have much time
to waste. I walked through the trees and continued over the unmarked path,
gradually moving up into the hills. Measuring my steps carefully, so I knew
how to get back to the beach, I walked through the underbrush and noticed
how little seemed to have changed. I took in the air which seemed cooler,
and less dense than the beachside, which was festering with humidity and
crowds. It was like a premonition of the autumn, looming in the distance. In
some strange way, it felt like I was taking a step ahead of reality. I
walked further up the path until it ended. I stood there below and looked up
to see a group of trees that sat at the bottom of a steep cliff that I
remembered from a previous trip there. I stared upwards at the steep cliff
and felt intimidated again. Nervously, I held my steps and doubted if going
up there again was really such a good idea. It was completely dark and
getting late. I wondered if anyone would come to help me if I slipped or ran
into other trouble. I remembered walking down the steps and this helped
reassure me. They were steep, but something I could navigate fairly easily.
I looked further up the hill and saw the familiar clearing far above me and
the memories came flooding back immediately.

Everything returned in a vivid flash and suddenly, I knew I was on the right
path, and only needed to work up the courage to return there. I reminded
myself of the many times I had gone there and left alone, and decided not to
let myself be disappointed if that happened again. I felt a bit nervous but
decided not to let the height and steep climb intimidate me. I looked around
and remembered something I hadnít thought of. When I left there last time,
the narrow group of steps that I walked down was covered in snow and ice,
but now they were exposed and I could see the cracks, warps and holes in
them. The steps didnít seem as safe as they had the last time I was there,
with their uneven surfaces posing more of a challenge. I needed to be very
careful climbing up them. The alternative was trying to climb on the side of
the mountain. I remembered how afraid I felt that night when I got stuck
there for hours. I decided to be more careful and I wouldnít let that happen
again. It was starting to get a little bit dark and I could sense that I
needed to hurry up. I walked up the steps slowly, with my head down,
navigating their tricky surfaces for several minutes. I did a fairly good
job keeping my balance and quickly found myself back at the top without much
effort. I occasionally looked behind to make sure no one was following me.
There was no one else there, exactly the way it should have been. I was
finally alone, but I didnít feel lost. I made my way up to the clearing and
saw that it had remained largely undisturbed through those many months. I
looked around for a place to rest, since my feet were a little tired.
Looking around I saw a small spot where I could sit and took the radio out
of my hand, resting it by my side. I sat there for awhile and let the cool
late summer air blow over my head. I watched the day dissolve into night,
the sun receding gently into the night sky. Streetlights gradually turned on
far below me, and I saw the cars move away from the beach, tracing the
remnants of a slow summer day behind them. I was entirely alone all the way
up there and my mind drifted back to the things that we had been through,
all the close encounters, premonitions and odd feelings came back to me in
waves, gently pulling me back into that strange, undefined place that seemed
to happen only occasionally, but seemingly without warning.

As the air cooled and the breezes became stronger, the trees seemed to take
on a different, less confining feel. Acting as conduits, their rustling
leaves and branches almost began rustle, helping to form a subtle,
unmistakably odd tone that almost sounded like a kind of signal. I sat there
and listened as it changed its temperament, moment by moment, coursing
through its natural instruments, slowly building and changing with each
gust. It felt like there was an energy and a life all its own surrounding
me, and I was entranced, like I had entered another world. I looked up and
saw a few birds had begun to fly far overhead. They looked familiar, as if
Iíd seen them in a dream, but I couldnít quite remember where they had come
from or when I had seen them. Slowly, the night took over once again and I
could see the first stars and then the moon come into view. I waited there
patiently. I was not letting the winds and the commotion they caused move me
from my spot. As the night went on, I saw the streets below begin to empty
with each passing hour. Time passed and I saw lights go out, further
distancing me from the world. I finally felt a little bit more at peace and
I let myself fall into a bit of a daydream, where I walked beside the boats
under the sun. Waking up, I realized I had lost track of time, there was
virtually no noise, the wind had subsided, leaving a calm void that felt
simultaneously serene and strange. It felt a little disorienting and the
drafty air felt thinner as the night wore on. Time seemed to pass without
much of a rhythm, slowly unfolding. I looked up towards the trees once again
and saw the stars had come out. It was getting late, and even the birds that
were flying overhead seemed to have gone home for the night. I sat there and
looked around, down once again towards the beach, which seemed as quiet and
still as it would in the middle of winter.

I was patiently waiting, expecting something to happen but, I had no idea if
anyone else might show up. I thought for a moment, that I felt something,
but then it passed. It was probably wishful thinking. I decided that it was
nothing, chasing after an empty dream once again. I stood up for a moment to
stretch out my legs and walked around the edge of the trees for a moment. I
wandered into the thickets and started walking back down the path. I figured
that the signals the trees and winds had gone unheeded. I began my sad
descent back towards the beach when I heard a loud cracking noise. I turned
my head and there was a sudden rush of sound coming from the clear up above
me. I rushed back up the path and heard something else. It sounded like a
strange kind of old music. The old, broken radio, which I had left there
without thinking, had suddenly turned on. Someone must have got it working.
I rushed towards the center and saw someone standing over it, turning the
dials. At first I couldnít make out the figure in the darkness, but as I
drew in closer, I recognized a distinct figure standing in her long, flowing
polka-dotted dress, My heart skipped a beat and felt my feet lighten almost
instantaneously. Immediately, I knew it was her and quickly moved closer
back through the trees. I stood at the edge and I saw more clearly that it
was absolutely her standing there. She cut a striking figure, even in the
darkness. Oddly, she was hunched over the antique radio, turning its knobs
and brushing off the dust with her fingers. She seemed intent on it and
didnít seem to notice my presence at first. I didnít know what she was
doing. It was so strange, and unexpected. In a moment, she had gone from a
distant vague daydream to someone who was standing right there in front of
me. I watched her for a moment and walked closer towards her. I could feel a
strange energy and force surrounding her that I couldnít quite place.

I watched as she tried to get it to work. She was staring at the radio,
turning its creaky, rusted dials tentatively, trying to get something in.
She waved it around in different directions to no avail. There seemed to be
a specific channel she was looking for and it wasnít quite coming in
clearly, wavering in and out. It was drowning in static and other
interference, and I could tell the batteries nearly completely drained. She
waved the radio around trying to get it to work. It seemed to only make
things worse. Its sound became wavier and more fragmented each time she
tried to pinpoint its direction. After a minute or two of this, she glanced
over and finally noticed that I was standing there watching. She looked at
me and her attention seemed to shift towards me. She put down the now silent
device and purposefully started walking in my direction. I couldnít make out
that much in the darkness, but I could see her eyes as she moved closer. She
seemed happy and I thought she was smiling, though I couldnít be sure. I
felt most of the fears that had built up inside me dissipate rapidly when I
was in her presence. They didnít matter for now and my mind focused on the
moment. She seemed surprised to see me and took her hands, extending them
towards me, and we embraced. In that moment, it was like all the time had
passed instantaneously. We were together again. She stepped back and looked
at me again. She looked me over and for moment she was puzzled. She seemed
surprised for some reason. I had grown a few inches over the past few months
and I probably looked a little different to her. Maybe she thought that I
was some kind of alien or other strange creature she couldnít quite
understand. I looked at her and she hadnít changed at all, though I noticed
something about her I hadnít noticed before. She walked like her feet
werenít quite on the ground, it almost seemed like she was floating, for a
moment. There was a strangely divine purpose in the way she walked, an
indescribably odd presence that seemed to follow her around.
She held my hand and pulled me along
with her, guiding me towards the center of the clearing. I didnít know what
to say but, I didnít really need to say a thing. I think she knew that I was
waiting to see her for a long time and that I was probably a little bit
confused. We walked for a short time around the perimeter, looking at the
tall trees that surrounded and fortified the flat grassy section. Under its
protective watch, the small forest gave us a kind of clandestine space where
we could meet away from unwanted eyes. Nobody was going to come between us
that night.

We stood there and she walked closer to me, and embraced me, holding my
shoulders and enveloping me in a warm, natural hug that I didnít expect. She
pulled her arms around me and I felt many of the fears I had felt evaporate
almost immediately. I held her a little bit and put my hands on hers, and we
shared a strange connection. I didnít quite understand what was happening.
For a moment, the vision of what I had seen in the window passed through my
mind and she seemed to be able to see it. She pushed back for a moment and
looked through my eyes. Quickly, I knew whatever threat it had posed, or
fears it created were unfounded. A malicious deception she quickly put to
rest, dispatching it into oblivion before it was allowed to sully our time
any longer. It would rarely cross my mind again for many years. She took her
hands down and walked back down the center of the clearing Ė making space
for herself and the radio beside a group of rocks. She looked at it
carefully and twisted the knobs again. There was complete silence, as if the
last bits of juice from its batteries had left it. She put it down on the
ground once again and shrugged. It probably didnít really matter and the
most important thing was that we were here together. She waved at me to join
her and I walked back towards the center from the edge of the trees. I
walked closer and sat down next to her. She held my hand once again and I
felt something else I hadnít sensed in a long time. I remembered how it felt
when we had been together the last time, how our feet and bodies
synchronized perfectly when we were skating on the rink far below. We didnít
need to do anything. I felt no pressure to recreate our last dances. The
night grew a bit darker as we sat there, silently keeping each other
company. There was no breeze or rain or anything. The night had grown deeper
and the world was silent. We didnít make a single noise, keeping our secrets
safe, not wanting to risk even the lowest single noise that would alert the
outside world to our presence.

As we sat there, the stars above us moved slowly, almost imperceptibly
across the sky. The winds slowly picked up once again and I could hear the
leaves on edge of the trees begin to rustle once again. I looked at her once
again and she seemed to have remained calm as always. She reached down and
fiddled around with the radio again, in an attempt to get some signs of life
from it. There was nothing. She handed it to me. I looked it over again, and
tried shaking it around, too. I looked on the back and felt something
sticking out of it. It was a small piece, and I examined it again. I shook
it some more and heard something rattling on the inside that I hadnít
before. There was nothing more to do, it was beyond repair. I put it down
beside me and looked at her. She shrugged her shoulders once again. Not much
we could do about it. She came a little bit closer to me and gave me a
little kiss on my cheek for trying. I was a little embarrassed by this but
also a bit surprises Ė it wasnít something I was expecting. I sat there for
a few moments, paralyzed and not knowing what to do. I returned the kiss on
her cheek as well and we both laughed for a moment, knowing that wasnít
really the path we would take. It was strange for a moment. We resumed our
silent vigil, watching the skies protected by the trees. At this point, they
were beginning to shake a little bit more, and the night had grown old. They
seemed to be anticipating the start of a summer morning. This meant our time
together, as long as it seemed to have stretched into the night, wouldnít
last forever.

I think she felt the time slowly running low and she decided to stand up.
She walked towards the center of the clearing and waved me over again. I
walked up to her position and she held out her hands. We didnít have any
music, but that wasnít going to stop us. She grasped my hands in hers and
swung me around a few times, twirling with me in the darkness, our nearly
silent footsteps gliding over the ground. It felt surprisingly smooth,
almost like we were gliding on ice once again. I could feel her movement
increasing in speed and I intently followed her steps as best I could.
It was a strange feeling, but I when
we were up there together, I felt a strange connection to her that no one
else had. We danced around again and our energy made the world down there,
seem unfathomably far below, sinking under us, seemingly evaporating under
our feet as we moved together. Under the trees, covered under the night, our
secret codes were protected. There were no shadows to see or monsters
chasing us in the dark. She took the lead into more spins but my feet were
still uncoordinated, making my moves clumsy. I stumbled around a little
trying to keep up but I kept falling behind her. I was getting a little bit
tired since I had been up all night. I was feeling a little overwhelmed by
this unexpected encounter and decided to take a rest. I gently pulled away
and found a place to sit down again. She followed me back there, sat down
next to me and held my hand. She squeezed it tightly and gave me another
quick hug. She understood I wasnít really in the mood. We sat there quietly
for a few minutes, soaking in the atmosphere. I looked above once again and
saw the skies on the east had begun to turn from black to a dark, navy blue.
As the minutes slipped by, I saw the first red rays of the sun emerge on the
horizon. I could see her better now, but she still seemed a little distant.
I couldnít figure out what was happening, but I knew it wouldnít last as
long as I would have liked. I looked in her eyes and she seemed sad all of a
sudden, resigned to a fate I had no way of understanding. I knew she had to
leave me but I didnít want accept it at first. I had waited so long to see
her again but we were already ready to part ways. I shook my head no, but
she took my hand and squeezed it a little. I knew that even though she would
leave me, she would always be there and weíd meet again. The first light of
day had begun to filter through the forest. She got up slowly and walked
back towards the center of the clearing. She took a few more spins around by
herself and laughed. She looked strangely radiant under the orange light,
like she was not of this world. She waved at me one last time and I
reluctantly waved goodbye. I watched her walk slowly away from me and felt
my heart sink as she disappeared behind the trees, vanishing back into the
shadows.

I sat there alone again for a few minutes and tried to keep myself from
getting too upset. I took the radio from the ground, and found a safe hiding
place for it, stashing it under a tree stump, carefully placing it so it
wasnít visible from the outside. As I put it there, I knew when I found it
again, that it would mean what had happened that night wasnít a daydream. I
still felt theconnection we
had shared pulsing through my body, though it had felt too brief this time,
I knew that there were other things awaiting me. I looked up and the sun was
beginning to draw closer to the horizon. Another summer day was about to
come to life. I remembered how I had snuck off to get there and how I wasnít
planning on staying too long. People were going to start getting worried if
I wasnít home in bed in the morning. I decided not to waste any time and
quickly ran back down the paths towards the bottom of the hill and back onto
the street. I thought of all the times before, and all the strange things I
had seen. Some of it seemed not to matter to me at all now, the way it had
before. I kept running our dances through my head and it made me happy. A
lot of my friends probably wouldnít understand why it mattered to me, but I
did. I remembered the way her hands felt in mine, how her eyes seemed to see
right through me. Sometimes, it was like she knew more about me than I did.
I looked around and saw the streets were still largely deserted. I walked
back towards home and suddenly, something came to me that I hadnít thought
of once during the entire night. It was too late. She was gone. My heart
sank.